BJP questions CBI's integrity in Quattrocchi case

Kolkata, Mar 2 (UNI) Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi today questioned CBI's integrity in dealing with the case relating to the Bofors Scandal accused Ottavio Quattrocchi.

Flaying the bigwigs of the Central Bureau of Investigation for allegedly supressing the news relating to the arrest of the Italian arms dealer in Argentina for 17 days, Dr Joshi said the CBI as well as the government have to answer a lot of queries on the issue.

The former Union Minister ridiculed the explanation given by the Ministry of External Affairs that the delay was totally unintentional and caused by the time required to translate the arrest documents from Spanish to English.

''Do they consider all of us fools?'' he asked and said the government's explanation was not acceptable to the party or to the Opposition in general.

Referring to the ''contradictions'' in the government versions of the about the existence of repatriation treaty between India and Argentina or whether it had been revoked causing the unnecessary delay in bringing back the arms dealer to India for trial, Dr Joshi claimed that the treaty very much existed. ''It is only a ploy of the CBI to confuse the people,'' he alleged.

UNI